17 Keys
Download Information and FAQ

-- Ways To Play -- Play Online: 17Keys Online Download Mac: 17KeysMac Offline* Download PC: 17 KeysPC Offline* * You'll need an un-stuffing utility to expand either of the downloaded versions of the game. If you don't have one try Unstuffit Expander - it's free.

-- STORY --
A bizarre dragon-man, exhales a blast of flame and reels back as the cheering of an angry mob swells. Hints of human and not-so-human faces form a ring around the panicked creature as he squares off against an aged man in traditional wizard's clothing. "What more could you want of me, Wyrick?" groans the beast.

The old man forces a wry, rotten-toothed grin and rears back his wand. The blast from the thin metal rod is improbably green and swells in size as it approaches the half-dragon cub. He reaches for a shield but is slowed by his wounds and meets the bulk of the blast head on. A green orb surrounds his paralyzed frame. Electric charges lock the sphere to the ground.

"Didimus unus, geminus unus. Unus scindo. Unus scindo geminus." The aging wizard's chant grows darker by the second. "Auctoritas gravitas severitas. Didimus unus, geminus unus." 

As the old man's crackling mantra continues, the viridian prison-orb emits an ever-escalating, pulsing glow. The stiff figure inside shudders and suddenly screams. His body separates and tears as the orb splits into two.  The dragonoid cub is not severed in the conventional sense. Half of him becomes man, and half becomes dragon. 

"It would take the power of Cuchulain's 17 Keys to overcome such a spell" cackles a cruel voice from among the onlookers.  Startled back into action, Amed snaps his head toward the voice. He considers the heckler's words for an instant, then lunges into action. 

--GAMEPLAY--
As the game begins you find yourself (Amed) separated from your dragon side and alone in a strange wilderness.  Your only tool is a torch, and it won't last long. Your mission is clear . . . find the 17 Keys of Cuchulain.  You'll find indicators along the bottom of the game screen to tell you your health, your torch life and your hunger.  

The red bar indicates your health, the yellow indicates torch life remaining, and the green bar indicates your hunger.  The smaller the bar, the worse shape you are in.  These elements are inter-dependent. Eating will eventually improve your health, and a lack of food can kill Amed.  Running and walking use energy and will increase your hunger faster than simply standing around. Using your torch as a weapon will deplete some of it's energy.

You may increase your health and decrease your hunger by eating. You may eat anywhere, but be careful in the shops. A shopkeeper might easily mistake your gesture as an offer of food and take the supplies before you know what happened.

You may increase your torch power by buying or earning more powerful torches.  Better torches last longer and are more effective in combat.  Stronger torches also use power more rapidly, so they don't last forever.

There is a map of the island on the upper right hand corner of the screen.  An orange dot indicates Amed's position, and a green one indicates the position of your adversaries.  You may click on the map to toggle it off and on screen.

The bottom of the screen will either display the health, power and hunger bars or it will display your inventory in a rack.  The inventory rack may be toggled off or on the screen by clicking either of the little bronze arrows.

The rack displays each of the items that you have acquired. When you want to use an item, click on it's icon in the rack.  If you are trying to buy something, and the item is not valuable enough to make the trade alone, the icon will be disabled, and you may add other items to offer in trade.  When your offer is large enough to make the trade, the items will be transferred between Amed and the person making the trade. (Hint, you can always buy items back if you sell them and then change your mind, but people do like to make a profit.)

May you find good fortune in your travels. 

-- FAQ --

Why would I want to download?
In short because Microsoft + Apple + Shockwave = Evil; the long answer is because Microsoft has inconsistently (imagine that) supported certain key features on the Macintosh platform version of Internet Explorer that make the preloading process (the stuff that gets the game ready to go) unreliable on the Macintosh via IE. You should download the game for your platform if you get errors when the shockwave is loaded.

I'm using Netscape or a PC and I still get an error just as the 3D part of the game is about to load?
Sometimes firewalls or slow connections - or other unknown configuration issues (possibly related to security settings) prevent the background loading from occurring. You should download the game for your platform.

Some of the graphical elements (textures / the area of torchlight) display jagged or not at all.
You have a cheesy graphics card. The graphics card is the part of your machine that does the heavy lifting in terms of putting pictures on the screen. To play this game you'll want one that handles OpenGL well. Most notably any standard Macintosh G3 or G4 that uses the ATI Rage 128 will not render the game very well. You may still play, but the display would be considerably better on a g-Force 2 or better card.

I downloaded the game and I still get errors.
Some graphics cards / systems just won't handle the rich 3D found in the game. You need a minimum of 128 MB of RAM and a 16 MB graphics card which supports openGL.  You may have to view the game on a different computer.

I'm in the game, now what?
Collect all 17 Keys to win. You may have to sell some and then buy them back to have powerful enough weapons to defeat the minions in the forest.

How do I get to the dragon flight level?
Buy the dragon amulet.

What form of currency does the game use?
Money within the world is relative. All items (save trees and grass) have a monetary value. If they are on your rack (yes that means even the minion medallions) then you can trade them with shopkeepers. The monetary system is defined below.

I want to learn how this game was made?
It's your lucky day! You can get all the tips, tricks, code and other cool stuff that was used to make this game in my new book "Real-Time Interactive 3D Games."  In it I explain how the game was made, and walk through each step and skill involved in bringing 3D interactive games to the web.